Christian Nation: A Novel, By Frederic C. Rich

(I put this in Water Cooler, because I didn't know where else to put it)

I was browsing on Goodreads, when I came across an ad for a book called Christian Nation. Intrigued, I clicked on it to learn more. I thought it was going to be non-fiction book, but I was surprised to find out that it was a novel, categorized as "speculative fiction." Here's the synopsis:

“They said what they would do, and we did not listen. Then they did what they said they would do.”

So ends the first chapter of this brilliantly readable counterfactual novel, reminding us that America’s Christian fundamentalists have been consistently clear about their vision for a “Christian Nation” and dead serious about acquiring the political power to achieve it. When President McCain dies and Sarah Palin becomes president, the reader, along with the nation, stumbles down a terrifyingly credible path toward theocracy, realizing too late that the Christian right meant precisely what it said.

In the spirit of Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, one of America’s foremost lawyers lays out in chilling detail what such a future might look like: constitutional protections dismantled; all aspects of life dominated by an authoritarian law called “The Blessing,” enforced by a reconfigured Internet known as the “Purity Web.” Those who defy this system, among them the narrator, live on the edges of society, sustained by the belief that democracy will rise to triumph over such tyrannical oppression.

I am intrigued by this book. I might try to read it if I can ever find it. I know this story is just fiction (for now), but the idea of the X-tian right turning America into a strictly X-tian Theocracy is one that I know is on the minds of many atheists, including me. I think this would be an interesting book to read, just to see what America might be like if the X-tain Right has anything to say about it.

Among the fictional estimations surrounding the idea of a takeover of the US government, one of my favorites has always been John Frankenheimer's classic Seven Days In May. This 1964 political thriller starred Burt Lancaster as General James Mattoon Scott, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose dismay at the president's negotiation of a disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union is so pronounced that he has entered into a conspiracy with his fellow Joint Chiefs to execute a military coup d'etat. This plot is uncovered by the General's adjutant, Colonel Martin "Jiggs" Casey (Kirk Douglas), and it nears the boiling point when President Jordan Lyman (Fredric March) confronts the general regarding his now-uncovered activities. After some very blunt exchanges, President Lyman proposes one possibility which I truly wonder if General Scott ever considered:

General, did it ever occur to you that if you took over this government by force, you wouldn't have to wait a year and nine months for the funeral. If the Soviet Union saw our government being taken over by a military dictatorship, how long do you suppose it would take them to break the treaty, possibly even attack us? I think perhaps a question of days ... perhaps hours ... certainly weeks.

With Vladimir Putin currently in control of the Russian Federation, I would say that the above scenario remains as likely now as it was back in 1964 at the height of the Cold War. If the United States ceases to be the relatively stable and predictable entity that it has been to date, the calculations of both Russia and China regarding the US would likely be markedly up for serious reconsideration, whether the overthrow were to a military junta or a christian theocracy. Either way, the dynamics of the the new government could easily and possibly rightly be seen as a threat to both nations, as well as a disturbing destabilization to our allies.

The further problem is that Sarah Palin and her ilk are likely far less concerned with external issues and consequences than they are with their primary thrust to render the US into the christian nation they think it should be ... all the more reason why none of those who entertain such ideology should ever come within a country mile of the Oval Office.